Konstantin Saradzhev

Fascinating article in the April 27 New Yorker mag about Russian bells...and the man mentioned above. Haven't read the whole thing yet, but it says he was "known not just for his ringing but also for his superhuman aural acuity: between two adjacent whole tones, he percieved not just one half tone but a half tone flanked on either side by a hundred and twenty one flats and a hundred and twenty one sharps." Wow...and, he was a skilled pianist as well, who referred to the piano as "that well tempered nitwit." It further said that "a piano can produce only twelve tones per octave, whereas Saradhzev perceived one thousand seven hundred and one." He called this ability "true pitch," and claimed it "lay dormant in all humans, and would someday be awakened." And, it mentions he was working on a theory of music related to all this.

Anybody know about this feller? I'd like to know more (guess I could Google). Pretty fascinating...Hstick www.microstick.net

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live� Hotmail�:�more than just e-mail.
http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_more_042009

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I just read that article last night, on Charles Turner's recommendation. Man, I would really like to hear those bells, especially the big one -- close up!

- Dave

Neil Haverstick wrote:
> Fascinating article in the April 27 New Yorker mag about Russian bells...and the man mentioned above. Haven't read the whole thing yet, but it says he was "known not just for his ringing but also for his superhuman aural acuity: between two adjacent whole tones, he percieved not just one half tone but a half tone flanked on either side by a hundred and twenty one flats and a hundred and twenty one sharps." Wow...and, he was a skilled pianist as well, who referred to the piano as "that well tempered nitwit." It further said that "a piano can produce only twelve tones per octave, whereas Saradhzev perceived one thousand seven hundred and one." He called this ability "true pitch," and claimed it "lay dormant in all humans, and would someday be awakened." And, it mentions he was working on a theory of music related to all this.
> > Anybody know about this feller? I'd like to know more (guess I could Google). Pretty fascinating...Hstick www.microstick.net
--
~DaveSeidel = [
http://mysterybear.net ,
http://daveseidel.tumblr.com ,
http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
];

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Konstantinovich_Saradzhev

"...encountering suspicion aroused by his eccentric behavior, he
became distraught and was sent back to Moscow, where he wrote a book
Muzyka-kolokol ("Music-bell") that has since disappeared and is
believed to have died in an insane asylum in 1941."

Sounds like a microtonalist alright. :)

-Carl

At 05:54 PM 4/27/2009, you wrote:
>I just read that article last night, on Charles Turner's recommendation.
> Man, I would really like to hear those bells, especially the big one
>-- close up!
>
>- Dave
>
>Neil Haverstick wrote:
>> Fascinating article in the April 27 New Yorker mag about Russian
>bells...and the man mentioned above. Haven't read the whole thing yet,
>but it says he was "known not just for his ringing but also for his
>superhuman aural acuity: between two adjacent whole tones, he
>percieved not just one half tone but a half tone flanked on either
>side by a hundred and twenty one flats and a hundred and twenty one
>sharps." Wow...and, he was a skilled pianist as well, who referred to
>the piano as "that well tempered nitwit." It further said that "a
>piano can produce only twelve tones per octave, whereas Saradhzev
>perceived one thousand seven hundred and one." He called this ability
>"true pitch," and claimed it "lay dormant in all humans, and would
>someday be awakened." And, it mentions he was working on a theory of
>music related to all this.
>>
>> Anybody know about this feller? I'd like to know more (guess I
>could Google). Pretty fascinating...Hstick www.microstick.net
>--
>~DaveSeidel = [
> http://mysterybear.net ,
> http://daveseidel.tumblr.com ,
> http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
>];

Curious, why did he choose 1701-edo, other that 1701 being 3^5 * 7? And
121 * 12 is not 1701, or is that what he meant by "121 sharps and flats"? ~D.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Neil Haverstick" <microstick@...>
To: <makemicromusic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 7:17 PM
Subject: [MMM] Konstantin Saradzhev

Fascinating article in the April 27 New Yorker mag about Russian
bells...and the man mentioned above. Haven't read the whole thing yet,
but it says he was "known not just for his ringing but also for his
superhuman aural acuity: between two adjacent whole tones, he percieved
not just one half tone but a half tone flanked on either side by a
hundred and twenty one flats and a hundred and twenty one sharps."
Wow...and, he was a skilled pianist as well, who referred to the piano
as "that well tempered nitwit." It further said that "a piano can
produce only twelve tones per octave, whereas Saradhzev perceived one
thousand seven hundred and one." He called this ability "true pitch,"
and claimed it "lay dormant in all humans, and would someday be
awakened." And, it mentions he was working on a theory of music related
to all this.

Anybody know about this feller? I'd like to know more (guess I could
Google). Pretty fascinating...Hstick www.microstick.net

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Konstantinovich_Saradzhev
>
> "...encountering suspicion aroused by his eccentric behavior, he
> became distraught and was sent back to Moscow, where he wrote a book
> Muzyka-kolokol ("Music-bell") that has since disappeared and is
> believed to have died in an insane asylum in 1941."
>
> Sounds like a microtonalist alright. :)
>
> -Carl
>
> At 05:54 PM 4/27/2009, you wrote:
> >I just read that article last night, on Charles Turner's recommendation.
> > Man, I would really like to hear those bells, especially the big one
> >-- close up!
> >
> >- Dave
> >
> >Neil Haverstick wrote:
> >> Fascinating article in the April 27 New Yorker mag about Russian
> >bells...and the man mentioned above. Haven't read the whole thing yet,
> >but it says he was "known not just for his ringing but also for his
> >superhuman aural acuity: between two adjacent whole tones, he
> >percieved not just one half tone but a half tone flanked on either
> >side by a hundred and twenty one flats and a hundred and twenty one
> >sharps." Wow...and, he was a skilled pianist as well, who referred to
> >the piano as "that well tempered nitwit." It further said that "a
> >piano can produce only twelve tones per octave, whereas Saradhzev
> >perceived one thousand seven hundred and one." He called this ability
> >"true pitch," and claimed it "lay dormant in all humans, and would
> >someday be awakened." And, it mentions he was working on a theory of
> >music related to all this.
> >>
> >> Anybody know about this feller? I'd like to know more (guess I
> >could Google). Pretty fascinating...Hstick www.microstick.net
> >--
> >~DaveSeidel = [
> > http://mysterybear.net ,
> > http://daveseidel.tumblr.com ,
> > http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
> >];
>
From Robert. Mention of this fellow is made in the following four
articles:

http://russianbells.com/akir/korzh-deeproots.html
http://russianbells.com/interest/harvard-danilov/harv-dan-04.html
http://russianbells.com/news/vera-35t/vera-35t.html

And:
http://russianbells.com/ringing/typikon.html
which mentions a pdf which may or may not contain more info.

Neil wrote:
"It further said that "a piano can produce only twelve tones per octave,"
"whereas Saradhzev perceived one thousand seven hundred and one."

Well, 12 tones * about 15 overtones for the piano = about 180 tones. And then you get about 10 varieties of 'difference' tones IE between C and D...and C and E..etc...which would make about 1800 possible tones.
My guess is his ability came from an instinct to be able to separate the above from the base tone. Someone with such an ability would likely be ace at aligning timbre/overtones and scales EVEN without needing to use Sethares formulas...in fact I would be interested to find if he did any work on aligning timbre with scale.

-Michael